'Lost', short story by Darren Tyler

I loved the sense of the surreal and the sinister in this tale.

Image chosen by Darren as part of his original blog creation

Darren Tyler

Lost

I was lost. I had been in this forest many times before, but today I cannot find a way out. It has swallowed me whole, like a beast devouring its prey. I want to scream but I know the forest will not hear my cry. I scream anyway just to let the emotion consume my anger at this price I must pay for doing business.

The forest has quieted. The sounds and ambience of the forest have retracted into the womb of Mother Nature.  The silence, the silence. For it is this that my mind cannot control or comprehend, but yet I know this silence. It forebodes my whole sense yet I let it with no subjective thought to why.  The darkness is setting in. the light is receding from my view. To a place that is unreachable. I want to reach out and touch, to feel, to make it real. The forest has started to wake from its slumber now the blanket of darkness is smothering the green with the colour of my life. I laugh to myself, I do not know if it is a chuckle of defeat or a laugh to remind myself that the battle is ahead. I have felt this irrational fear before, o so many. It has incapacitated my being. I know if I buckle from the weight the stone will be cast.

The smell of the pines engulfs my senses. I am distracted for a moment in time that slows to a pace that is comfortable. For it is the smell of life that suddenly I see a small light in the horizon, it is a chink in the armoury of this veil. I gaze at this light and my hope is renewed like the first flower of spring. The awakening of a better life.

I am awake, I think. I am no longer in the forest. I find myself in a room that is so white the brightness blinds me for a second. A big steel door is the only object that takes my eye, I am alone again. I hear a sound in the distance, the repetitive tap of a train nearing its destination.  I feel a wave of euphoria start to rise from my legs and it encapsulates my whole body, I like this feeling, it makes me feel.  The door is unlocked and I see a face I do not recognise but seems familiar. She is dressed in white and for a moment she warps into the wall as if one organism. She is pushing a steel trolley but my eye catches the kaleidoscope of tablets protruding from the top of the trolley. I am captivated and fixated. I laugh to myself and then I remember where I will go to today.